“It’s not your fault,” Wahoo said.
“I’m the one who dragged you guys into this mess. I should never have run away. I should’ve stayed and hidden at the Walmart.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The garden department is immense. It would take Daddy a week to find me in there.”
“Okay, that’s just crazy,” Wahoo said.
Between the two of them, water was flying out of the boat in all directions.
Tuna clenched her jaw, fighting back tears. “I never thought he’d shoot a person. Not in a million years.”
“Maybe it was an accident, like you said.”
“No, he’s totally gone off the deep end. What if he kills someone, Lance?”
Wahoo didn’t look up. “My father can take care of himself.”
“Well, my father…” Tuna laughed bitterly. “My father can’t take care of breakfast-”
Three more shots rang out, one after the other. Wahoo and Tuna stopped bailing and turned to listen. Derek, who was dozing, didn’t stir.
“How far?” Tuna whispered.
“Closer than before.”
Most likely, the gunfire was coming from Jared Gordon. Maybe a bobcat or a python had crossed his path-or maybe Mickey Cray was trying to escape. The thought made Wahoo’s stomach pitch.
A gust of wind brought a faint, swirling fragment of human conversation. They were male voices, two of them, which likely meant Mickey was still alive-at least that’s what Wahoo elected to believe.
Had to believe.
“Sounds like they’re heading this way,” he said to Tuna.
Derek woke up and asked what was going on.
“We need to hide,” Wahoo told him. “Let’s move.”
“Hide from what? Vampires?”
“Worse,” said Tuna. “Lead the way, Lance.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Once the weather began to improve, Sergeant Ramirez sent the searchers into action. Four airboats, each with a police officer aboard, departed at high speed from Sickler’s dock. A sheriff’s helicopter carrying infrared equipment was flying in from South Miami, and the Coast Guard was sending a chopper from Opa-locka.
Meanwhile, Raven Stark had locked herself in Derek Badger’s motor coach in order to hide from a throng of news reporters who’d learned that the famed survivalist was missing in the Everglades. The reporters were trying to make a connection between Derek’s disappearance and the “crazed gunman” who’d terrorized the crowd at Sickler’s store, but a spokesperson for the police department said the two incidents were totally unrelated.
The media frenzy got even more stirred up by the director of Expedition Survival! He blabbed to a tabloid columnist about Derek’s bloody encounter with the mastiff bat, sparking speculation that Derek had been stricken with rabies and was dying alone in the murky wetlands. Thousands of frantic fans posted messages on Derek’s Facebook page and Tweeted anxiously among themselves.
Raven was miffed at the director, but, back at his office in California, Gerry Germaine remained unfazed. The executive producer believed that the publicity surrounding Derek’s predicament-no matter what happened-would increase the TV audience for Expedition Survival! That would lead to higher advertising rates, which would lead to bigger profits for the Untamed Channel.
In the semi-tragic event that Derek indeed perished from rabies (or some other tropical disease), Gerry Germaine was preparing to broadcast a two-hour tribute, with highlight reels. The ratings would be epic from coast to coast.
“Let’s release a statement to the media,” said Raven, “saying we’re confident that Derek, being such a skilled outdoorsman, is alive and well.”
“Not so fast,” Gerry Germaine cautioned. “It isn’t such a terrible thing to have the whole world worrying about him. Remember those trapped miners down in Chile? When they got out, they were total rock stars.”
The comparison was flimsy. The Chilean coal miners had been true survivalists, the real deal. Derek Badger wouldn’t have lasted twenty-four hours in that cold black hole without losing his marbles, as both Raven and her boss knew.
“It’ll be getting dark here soon,” she said. “That will slow down the search.”
“Hmmm.” Gerry Germaine was cleaning his fingernails with a sterling silver letter opener. Engraved with his initials, it had been a gift from one of Expedition Survival! ’s biggest sponsors, the company responsible for Pit Power, an underarm deodorant for “the raw adventurer in all of us.” Derek Badger refused to endorse the product, saying it smelled like rotten mangoes.
“With a little luck, the cops will come across Derek before they track down this lunatic Gordon,” Raven was saying. “If that happens, we’re golden. Derek will be the top story on every newscast in America!”
Gerry Germaine agreed politely. “Raven, dear, have you ever seen this reality show from New Zealand called Snake Diver?”
“What does that even mean, ‘snake diver’?”
“The star is a fellow named Brick Jeffers, and he’s quite good on camera-witty, down-to-earth and seriously ripped. He does the blindfolded parachute entrance, like Derek, only for real. No stuntmen.”
“What are you getting at, Gerry?”
“You know. Worst-case scenario?”
Raven was stunned. “You mean, if Derek doesn’t make it out of the Everglades, this guy would replace him on Expedition? This Brick Jefferson snake-diving nobody?”
“The name is Jeffers. And we’re flying him in from Auckland for an interview.”
“I can’t believe this!”
“Worst-case scenario, like I said. It makes sense to have a backup ready in case Derek can’t do the show anymore.”
“Like if he’s dead, you mean.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Well, he’s not dead,” Raven asserted. “I just know it.”
Gerry Germaine said, “Call me as soon as you hear something.”
Then he hung up the phone and asked his secretary to make some calls. He wanted to know which restaurant in Beverly Hills served the tastiest New Zealand lamb chops.
Wahoo had more patience than his father did, but Derek Badger was pushing him to the limit.
“You call this a hiding place, mate?”
“Keep your voice down,” Wahoo said.
They were hunkered in a thicket of sticky vines and coco plums. Derek wouldn’t quit griping. He insisted his fever was worse. He prattled on about muscle cramps and strange tremors in his feet.
Tuna fished in her tote bag. “Here, try these.” She handed him two of the same chalky pink tablets that she’d been giving to Wahoo’s father.
“What’s this?” Derek asked skeptically.
“Twenty milligrams of advanced formula Raguserup 2800.”
“Ragu-what?” He made a face as he swallowed the tablets. Yet soon he stopped complaining about his aches and pains, and within an hour he was napping again.
Wahoo asked to see the bottle. “What kind of medicine is Raguserup? I definitely need to stock up on this for Pop.”
Tuna laughed. “It’s not medicine, Lance. It’s just a sugar pill.”
“What?”
“Seriously-I made up the name myself. It’s pure sugar, spelled backward,” she explained. “I even printed up a
